Addressing the Climate Emergency


Due to the many assessments and reports issued since 1990 by the United Nation’s IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – and the subsequent international commitment to address the climate issue achieved in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change which, as of February 2020 has now been signed by 189 countries, the world population has become increasingly alarmed that a period of global warming has commenced which may lead to environmental catastrophe by the end of this century. Numerous scientific studies have shown that this warming is caused by rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere which is attributed to the continued dependence on the use of fossil fuels to satisfy most of humanity’s energy needs.

Thus, a worldwide program to address the impending climate disruption has been incorporated into the United Nation’s Agenda 2030 [1] including the Paris Agreement and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as well as through a number of international conferences [2], sub-organizations and public-private partnerships. Similar measures are being promoted, developed and adopted by environmental and scientific organizations worldwide [3]. Many prominent people such as former US vice-president Al Gore, British natural historian and broadcaster David Attenborough and the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg have brought the Climate Emergency to the world’s attention [4].

As it is the Sun which warms the surface of Earth and drives the hydrologic cycle, it is the primary source of energy for the climate system which keeps Earth suitable for life. The sunspot cycle of the Sun also has much do with the changes in the climate and scientists report that the current long period of low sunspot activity may indicate that the Sun is entering a Solar Minimum which could lead to a severe cooling effect similar to the last Little Ice Age [5]. Solar activity which modulates the influx of galactic cosmic rays (high-speed particles that strike the Earth from space), has been shown to have a direct influence on cloud formation and has been correlated with warmer periods during high solar activity and cooling periods during low levels of solar activity [6]. Severe global cooling would probably be much worse for humanity than the predicted rise in global temperatures as this would directly affect food production and require additional energy for heating and maintaining all aspects of society. In either case, addressing the Climate Emergency will require massive amounts of clean energy production for a growing population to adapt and survive a severe warming or cooling situation [7].

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change

The Paris Agreement is an agreement the UNFCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) negotiated and adopted by 196 state parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCC held in Paris in 2015 and entered into force on November 4, 2016 to deal with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance. As of March 2019, 187 member nations have since become party to it.  The long term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature well below 2 oC above pre-industrial levels; and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.52 oC in order to substantially reduce the risks of climate change due to global warming.

The aim of the agreement is to decrease global warming with a strategy that involves energy and climate policy including the so-called 20/20/20 targets, namely the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO22) emissions by 20%, the increase of renewable energy’s market share to 20%, and a 20% increase in energy efficiency. Countries furthermore aim to reach “global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible”. The agreement has been described as an incentive for and driver of fossil fuel divestment. [8]

Using the UNFCC target of achieving a 20% energy market share, combined wind and terrestrial solar solutions would therefore need to deploy an operational power generation capacity of between 15.4 TW and 28.6 TW in order to deliver between 4.6 TW – 8.6 TW of power to meet the 20% targets of in the year 2050. This can be compared to the 2018 levels of deployed renewable energy: 745.4 GW or 0.75 TW and to current world energy consumption in terms of power which is 18.4 TW.

As energy use is essential to any discussion of humanity's impact on climate change, an analysis of the Energy Dilemma strongly suggests that none of the current terrestrial energy options – nuclear, wind, solar (pv) – are feasible alternatives because of the inherent problems with each when trying to scale to meet current and/or anticipated energy requirements of humanity and/or for meeting the United Nations Paris Agreement targets by the year 2050. In addition, each has various unresolved and specific environmental impact issues which are often overlooked when these are promoted as “green” solutions to humanity’s energy problem.

 Addressing the Climate Emergency will require massive amounts of clean energy production to adapt and survive a severe warming or cooling situation. None of the alternative terrestrial energy options – nuclear, wind and ground solar (PV) – can be sufficiently scaled to achieve the goal of divesting from fossil fuels and achieve net-zero CO2 levels by the year 2050 as is being called for by the United Nations, many governments and numerous organizations. In addition, each of these terrestrial energy alternatives has various unresolved and specific environmental impact issues which are often overlooked when these are promoted as “green” solutions to humanity’s energy dilemma. The various Space Energy Options represent the only technically feasible near term alternative to addressing the Climate Emergency – if any of these can be implemented in time.


References

  1. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
    Accessed 20.03.2020
  2. Climate emergency: City mayors are ‘world’s first responders’, says UN chief, https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1049091 Accessed 20.03.2020
  3. Why climate change is now a climate emergency,
    https://climateemergency.com/the-emergency
  4. U.N. Environment Programme, Leaders on Leaders https://www.unenvironment.org/blogs/2019-10/climate-leadership-inspires
    Accessed 20.03.2020
  5. Experts Predict a Long, Deep Solar Minimum https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/04/10/experts-predict-the-solar-cycle/
    Accessed 20.03.2020
  6. Force Majeure: The Sun’s Role in Climate Change, Henrik Svensmark, GWPF, 2019, https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2019/03/SvensmarkSolar2019-1.pdf Accessed 20.03.2020
  7. Patrick Collins & Marco C. Bernasconi, Risk Analysis of Climate Change, and Potential SPS Contribution to Global Warming or Global Cooling Mitigation,
    https://thespaceoption.com/risk-analysis-of-climate-change-and-potential-sps-contribution-to-global-warming-or-global-cooling-mitigation/
    Accessed 20.03.2020
  8. Paris Agreement, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement Accessed 20.03.2020